talking too much

by haywardhelen

I’d often found myself sitting back and thinking that my husband was talking too much, after a glass of wine, when we had friends for dinner. Until last night when we had neighbours round while Paul was taking a course of antibiotics and he abstained from wine at dinner. Not drinking wine had nil effect on Paul’s capacity to command the conversation. The near neighbours, who joined us for dinner, have lived all over the world, in various scientific defence posts. This became an invitation for Paul to display his fluent knowledge of world history; among other things, the fate of Gibraltar and Ireland in the Brexit process, about which I know little, was a recurring theme. Like a conductor before an invisible orchestra, barely pausing, again and again Paul drew the conversation back to himself in the most natural way.

The day before our neighbours came for dinner I cooked a meat sauce, a Ragu, to have with pasta, thickened with a jar of canellini beans I plucked from the freezer to stretch the dish. Shortly before our guests arrived I plopped the annoyingly still frozen beans into the Ragu; assuming that, on lifting the lid from the oven, forty minutes later, the beans would have melded nicely into the sauce. At seven thirty, on the dot, our neighbours arrived with a box of dark Lindt chocolates and a bottle of wine. Paul joined us in the kitchen to exchange pleasantries, and our puppy snapped at our visitors as they leaned into his playpen where he was dozing, to pat him hello. Easing the pot from the oven I lifted the lid of the casserole to see a determinedly frozen clump of canellini beans bobbing in the middle of the sauce. With a slotted spoon I lifted the clump of beans from the pot and transferred it to the sink, hoping that our guests, who were chatting to me near the hob, would think it a crust of Parmesan.

Our semi-retired neighbours talked glowingly of walking the Camino Way, and of walking the French equivalent the following year: of staying in monasteries and eating at long tables and heading off at dawn for six hours’ walking for a six week stretch; something it struck me I couldn’t contemplate doing with Paul, who plays tennis daily but doesn’t relish long walks. The conversation barreled on, like an express train missing all the small stations. I wandered through the carriages, trying to getting my own word in – a common occurrence that I normally put down to being the only one round the table past nine o’clock not drinking alcohol. There in the main carriage was Paul, who I watched mostly in profile, in full conversational flight. Instead of making my usual silent complaint that he was talking too much, I decided just to watch him talk. Released from reacting to him, and from the need to get my oar in, to make my presence felt, I started to notice a similar dynamic between our neighbours. The husband was talking markedly more than his restrained pleasant wife. He wasn’t actively dominating. He seemed genuinely happy to be talking freely, excited even, telling us about drinking morning tea in Meissen china tea cups, the pride of an East German general, and, in the next breath, of sailing with his family from India to Tasmania, as a six-year-old boy, following India’s Independence.

That’s when it struck me, sitting back and letting the conversation swirl around me as I sat hardly speaking, staunchly remaining sitting until Paul cleared the table and brought out cheese, at which point I hopped down from my stool and put on the kettle for tea. I looked over again, just to make sure. Yes, our male neighbour really did bear a likeness to my father. It was partly his looks, only a little older than my father had been when he died; but it was also his manner. With this I stopped feeling disgruntled, my usual reaction to feeling left out of the conversation, and let the dinner run its course.

My husband really does talk a lot. He really doesn’t wait for a pause after someone else finishes what they have to say before leaping in with his next point, hands waving as if drawing willing listeners to his side. But talking too much, I tell myself, doesn’t make him a bad person. Akin to his appetite for food, for which he is often ravenous by dinner time, his desire for company after a day of writing has always been strong. Besides, as Paul is keen to point out if I ever bring the matter up, who is to say that he talks too much if I am the only one doing the measuring? Perhaps, he’ll say, what it really means is that I don’t talk enough. For him it’s a mystery that I might struggle to compete with him when it comes to sharing ourselves with friends round the table. Why should it be his fault that his rapid-fire conversation has the unwitting effect of dampening the uptake of mine?

So why exactly don’t I talk more over dinner? Why don’t I find it easier to insert myself into the tumble of conversation round the table when friends come round to eat with us? Am I shy? Tired? Polite? Sobre? Preoccupied by cooking and the dynamics of the dinner as a whole?

Our neighbours are sure to have noticed that Paul talked way more than I did over dinner last night. Perhaps they put it down to my being quiet; although this is doubtful because, a fortnight ago, when I spent time at their house without Paul, I had plenty to say for myself. Perhaps they’re sufficiently knowing to see a similar dynamic in their own marriage, smiling wryly to themselves. Perhaps they’re old enough to know that the dynamics within a couple, over a long relationship, obey its own laws, following its own script, and are to some extent out of the control of each partner. Perhaps, before friends come for dinner next time, I should practice my lines, just as I prepare food and warm plates in the oven.

8 Comments to “talking too much”

Um….I may be guilty of talking too much when people stop by. And it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with booze – I can talk your ear off even when I’m stone cold sober. Lucky for me, The Viking doesn’t have trouble inserting himself into a conversation. At times though, I’ll ask him quietly if I’m talking too much and he always says I’m not. Kindness and not wanting me to be self-conscious about yet another thing? Maybe, but I’ll take it. 🙂

If your relative quiet leaves you feeling restless or lonely at the end of the gathering, then you must do something differently. Dynamics can be changed. However, so far, it sounds to me that it works fairly well. A lovely evening!

I don’t know, but it predates us all, I’d guess. For certain, I’d rather feel that someone else is talking too much than to think I am (as I’m about to do in this comment)! The last wondrous dinner party I attended was with 3 men and one other wife. Two of the men worked together in the airline industry, and my husband was a regular Third-Thursday-Guys’-Night-Out attendee/friend of both, and if there was a talking/re-bonding award…*sigh. The wife and I sat there nodding and interjecting a question or comment occasionally, but her hostess ministrations were off the chart, and I noticed every bit of care and detail she’d put into decorating and seating for before, during and after dinner, gorgeous stemware even for water with lemon — not to mention the delectable courses prepared as if for royalty — and I felt incredibly blessed. That is what we do for one another, I guess, and it becomes a gift to all. Talking, too, would be nice, but…

I was yesterday at the Womenâs BBL speaking with Ange Pippos (sportsâ journalist) and the Director of the Office for Women in Sport for Victoria (or some such title). The topic was men dominating the conversation and women politely listening ie think that their conversation is more interesting. Very pervasive.

Also, you and I are introverts. My husband is not. I suffer the same at dinner parties which makes them stressful to me.

How to address this? Maybe just interjecting with your own story at some stage — that is what William does to stem the flow of Andrew talking!

thanks so much for this, cIare – of course you are right; I have read Susan Cain’s Quiet and it resonated with me a Iot; though I confess I hadn’t thought of you in that vein, as introverted – apoIogies for my Iack of a fuII stop – it makes my repIies rather more abbreviated than usuaI! And yes, it wouId be IoveIy to catch up at some point – aII best HeIen